


Language Lessons

by ashesandhoney



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (I appreciate that pining keith is a recommended tag when i typed in pining), Fluff, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 18:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11296560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: A short little fluff piece where Lance attempts to give Spanish lessons and Keith finds he enjoys it.





	Language Lessons

“Where did you learn that?” Lance asked.

Keith glanced over at him and raised his eyebrows. Lance had his hands spread and his head cocked to the side. He looked like a puppy. Keith had always thought of himself as a cat person but there was something endearing about the confused puppy look. Finding Lance endearing was annoying. Annoying Lance was safer and it took the edge off the endearing moments. He made sure his face was carefully blank before he responded.

“Learn what?” Keith asked.

In an attempt to make friends and keep the peace - Allura’s words, not his - he had been trying to find ways to interact with Lance that didn’t make either of them want to strangle the other. Somehow Lance giving Spanish lessons had been the thing that worked. For awhile Pidge had been in on it but she’d gotten bored and frustrated when they had gotten past the very basics. Languages didn’t have the order and reason that Pidge expected. She wanted explanations for irregular verbs and idioms and then Lance would just argue with her about whether or not “no hay que buscarle cinco patas al gato” was or was not ridiculous. It was a nice change of pace from him arguing with Keith when putting his feet up on the desk but it ended with Pidge rolling her eyes and walking away.

Now it was just the two of them, sitting in a corner of the castle, having halting conversations in the language. Keith looked forward to it. He did not tell Lance that. Lance did not need to know that and probably wouldn’t want to know anyways. Lance had a tendency to show off but there was a piece of him that was methodical and dedicated and that made him a surprisingly good teacher. Besides, when he was focused on explaining why that verb ending couldn’t be used in that sentence, he wasn’t as annoying as he usually was.

“Where did you learn how to say that,” Lance said.

“What do you mean? Isn’t the point of this whole thing to say things?”

“I didn’t teach you that.”

“So?”

“So where did you learn it?”

“I grew up in Texas, you’re hardly the first person I’ve ever met who speaks Spanish.”

“What?”

“There are other people on the planet who speak that language.”

“Yes, thank you, genius, I knew that. That isn’t what I meant,” Lance said.

“So what did you mean?” Keith asked.

This was the start of an argument and he leaned back on the ledge he was sitting on and braced himself for whatever stupid thing Lance was going to say next. Lance was so very good at ruining otherwise nice moments by saying stupid things. Each time he did, Keith vowed to himself that it was a sign to just give up on the entire attempt at friendship and just walk the hell away. They could be team mates without being friends. Lots of people were teammates without being friends. Friends was as far as he let that thought go before he cut it off, bludgeoned it to death and buried it in the back of his mind.

“How much did you know?” Lance asked.

“More than Pidge,” Keith said.

“You learned too fast, I knew you were playing some game. What the hell?”

Keith rolled his head and stretched his neck. It gave him an excuse to be looking somewhere else. Lance had leaned forward to rest an elbow on his knee and do some meaningless gesture with his hand. He looked indignant and ridiculous and kind of cute. He was so tall and narrow that watching him fold in on himself was a novelty. Keith went back to rolling his shoulder and looking at the ceiling rather than at anything related to Lance.

“I passed freshman Spanish before I joined the garrison. I don’t know very much. You’ve taught me more than Senora Brown ever did. Who cares if I happened to remember that word?”

That he had passed was true. He hadn’t done well but he had passed. He hadn’t learned much in the class. His Spanish teacher had been from Rhodes Island and had once admitted that an all-inclusive resort in Vera Cruz was as close as she had ever gotten to using the language outside of a classroom. He had learned more in the first few lessons with Lance and Pidge then he had in that entire year.

“You still could have told me.”

“Whatever.”

“Dude.”

That wasn’t said in quite as irritated a tone as Keith had been expecting and he looked back at Lance again. He looked a little annoyed and a lot puzzled but he didn’t look like he wanted to start an argument. So, Keith told him the truth, “You liked teaching it. I didn’t mind learning it again. You’re less homesick when you have someone to talk to.” Lance frowned and sat up, his head tilting again.

“I am not homesick.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Keith said and pushed himself up off the window ledge and turned his back on both the impossible view of nothingness beyond and the conversation itself. He didn’t want to talk about this. Especially not with Lance. He left the room before Lance could put together some response to the whole thing that would undoubtedly make it all worse. That had been dangerously close to admitting how much time Keith had spent thinking about Lance and his strange moods and expressive hands.

He slammed the door on his way out and Lance yelled an insult after him but they both knew they’d be back in that room the next day for another lesson.

**Author's Note:**

> *pokes at new ship*
> 
> This is a test drive fic, just to see whether or not I can get the two of them right. I've got a few other fragmented ideas for them including one that runs a little plotty so I needed to test out whether or not I could write them.


End file.
